The Texas Tycoon's Baby(49)

“I’ve tried. But it all keeps boiling down to this—Eli and my mom could’ve avoided hurting a lot of people if they’d come clean a lot earlier.” He shook his head. “There’s never a good enough reason to hide the truth.”

“Never?”

She still sounded odd, but he couldn’t read her face since she’d turned away from him again.

He eased her around so he could see her. “None of that matters now. Eli and I are starting up a new relationship.” Even as he said it, there was something dragging at him—the truth of how he still felt. “Okay, maybe there’s always going to be a part of me that remembers how he held back the truth for so many years. Same with my mom. But, with her, I’ll never have the opportunity to tell her how much damage she did.”

“I wish she was here, and not just so you could straighten matters out with her, too,” Mina said.

He hugged her to him. Mina, his saving grace, the woman who always seemed to keep him balanced.

“I’m still angry at her,” he said. “And if you hadn’t come into my life, I even wonder if I might’ve ended up with a woman who would lie to me like my mom did to Abe at first. How’s that for some neuroses?”

“You can’t generalize like that, Chet.”

Then she fell silent.

He kissed her head, wanting her to know that everything would improve from this night on.

“You’re right—I shouldn’t generalize,” he said. “You’re the most trustworthy person I know.”

She was gripping his hand now, finally looking at him, but with a hint of anxiety in her gaze.

He strove to reassure her. “I was so afraid of bringing you into my life. My God, what woman in her right mind would ask to be a part of it?”

“I’ve told you before—I was always determined to be there for you throughout everything, thick and thin. All I’ve ever wanted was to see you heal up…”

Touched, he pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down on it, bringing her onto his lap. She snuggled against him, her face near his neck, her hair brushing his skin and driving him crazy. When she spoke, her breath tickled him.

“Everything I’ve ever done,” she said softly, “it’s been because I was thinking about what might be best for you.”

“I know.” He kissed her temple. “Because you’re my girl.”

It was as if that particular sentiment had twisted something within her, and she pressed her face against him harder.

He felt wet skin. Tears?

Leaning back, he cupped a hand under her jaw. “Why are you crying?”

She seemed on the edge of saying something, but then shook her head.

Why was she so sad when this should be the happiest moment of their lives?

All he wanted to do was bring her to where he was—happy. Finally happy.

He pressed his mouth to hers, tenderly, with all the affection he’d been fighting before now.

“I love you, Mina,” he said.



They were the words she’d been hoping for, but she barely registered them through all the confused feelings that were tearing her up: wanting to love him right back, needing to tell him that maybe he wouldn’t feel so kindly toward her after she revealed that she, too, was a liar.

But there’d been such good reasons for not telling him about their own big, life-altering news.

Would it be too late to explain that to him? Or was he going to put her in the same category as his mother, whom he obviously hadn’t come to terms with yet?

Damn the woman for never telling Chet the truth. Yet Mina couldn’t be angry at a ghost, not when there was a man, flesh and blood, looking down at her with such openness and hope in his blue gaze.

Her instincts told her to just show him that she would always be his, no matter what she’d done to him.

“I love you, too,” she said, sadness making the words raw in her throat. “I love you so much, Chet.”

His smile was so beautiful—relaying what no other words could’ve possibly accomplished—that it was beyond Mina to tell him to wait and hear her out.

Before she could say anything else, he kissed her, and it was everything to her—full of the true affection he’d never admitted before now, full of the unconditional love she’d been searching for all her life.

She wasn’t a mistake to him, not this time.

Not until the truth would destroy everything she’d labored so hard to build with him. And she couldn’t stand to injure him again, not after he’d finally found a measure of peace tonight.

She kissed him back with everything she had in her—months of watching him from afar, of having to keep a yearning distance between them at work. Surely she could hold on to this complete and utter happiness just a little longer….